Rachel Monroe

How did you become a writer?

Ever since I can remember, I've negotiated the world through writing. From a very early age, it was how I made sense of my feelings, my experiences, and the world around me. As for how I became a person who makes a living as a writer, though -- I studied writing in college, got my MFA in fiction, and promptly stopped writing fiction and started writing essays. Slowly, I began incorporating more and more reporting into my essays because I discovered I really enjoyed it. Nowadays, I most enjoy writing what I think of as "reported essays" -- pieces that allow space for reflection or analysis or rhetorical flourishes, but that also incorporate information I've gathered through reporting.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

There are so many! This week, I'm feeling particularly grateful to a number of women who also write perceptively and humanely about crime and related subjects: Rachel Aviv, Alice Bolin, Janet Malcolm, Debbie Nathan, Sarah Marshall, and Sarah Weinman come immediately to mind. The past few non-crime books that I read and loved were by Jamel Brinkley and Renee Gladman.

When and where do you write? 

I try to get to it shortly after I wake up, when my brain is not yet clogged by the day. But I'm not one of those writers who gets up at 5AM or anything like that. Usually I'm at my desk in my office by around 9AM. Then I procrastinate with the crossword puzzle as long as I can before getting down to writing.

What are you working on now? 

Since my book just got published, I'm allowing myself a bit of a break before I plan my next big project. In the meantime, I'm working on a number of magazine features that are really fun and intriguing to think about -- and, fortunately for my peace of mind, they have nothing to do with crime.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I've had periods when it's hard to get started, or when everything I write feels like it comes out stilted and ugly. But one of the nice things about writing non-fiction is that when I'm feeling slow or stuck, I can do other parts of the work -- research, say, or transcribing interviews. Generally approaching the subject from a different angle is enough to inspire me to get going again.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

My college writing teacher used to spend an hour of our three-hour seminar on grammar. We'd pick apart bad sentences from last week's assignments and he'd help us identify the grammatical problems. At the time, I remember rolling my eyes, thinking this was excessive and boring -- but looking back at it, I'm really grateful for that education. Solid, clear, elegant sentences are so fundamental to good writing. I'm grateful he encouraged me to slow down, be deliberate, and aim for clarity.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Don't pay too much attention to anyone else's path. Discover what fascinates and compels you, and dig down into it. And then keep going.

Rachel Monroe is the author of Savage Appetites, a book about women, crime, and obsession that the New York Times called "enthralling" and NPR described as "necessary and brilliant." She was a 2016 finalist for a Livingston Award for Young Journalists and was named one of the "queens of nonfiction," along with Susan Orlean, Rebecca Solnit, and Joan Didion, by New York Magazine in 2016. Her essay about murder fandom and adolescence, "Outside the Manson Pinkberry," originally published in The Believer, is anthologized in The Best American Travel Writing 2018, and she regularly writes for the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, New York Magazine, Texas Monthly, The Guardian, and others. She lives in Marfa, Texas.

Long Litt Woon

How did you become a writer?

I became a writer by accident. My book "The Way Through The Woods. On Mushrooms and Mourning" (Spiegel & Grau/Penguin Random House, 2019) was written after my husband passed away suddenly. I was in deep mourning and by chance, joined a beginners' course in mushrooming. That turned out to be what "saved" me in my time of need. So, I went on to write about my two journeys: the first being my discovery of the fascinating Kingdom of Fungi and my meeting with the strange tribe of Mushroom Pickers (I am an anthropologist) and the second being my wanderings in the landscape of grief. And about how these two journeys are intertwined.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Perhaps I need to start with my late father who was very conscious about getting us kids to learn to LOVE reading, and who taught me to read in the first place. I was a voracious reader in my younger days. Some writers were favorites and I read all I could get hold of. Thomas Hardy, D.H.Lawrence and Isaac B. Singer were some of these. More contemporary writers I have read many works by are Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan. 

When and where do you write?

I am privileged in that I am a full time writer so I can write everyday. And I do. I write at home. 

What are you working on now?

The difficult book number TWO.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

What is that?

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Keep writing. It is like brushing your teeth. Just do it. And not wait for "inspiration".

What’s your advice to new writers?

See above.

Bio: Born 1958 in Malaysia. Anthropologist. Live in Oslo, Norway in the summertime and in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the winter.

Liz Garton Scanlon

How did you become a writer?

There was my exhaustive autobiography in 4th grade. My diary-with-a-lock when I was 11. My whirlwind romance with college radio reportage. There was the angst-ridden poetry of my 20s and the corporate copywriting once I had a mortgage. But honestly, it was having children of my own that made me into a children's writer. It was the re-immersion into children's literature, through their eyes, that reminded me how much space there was in that world for curiosity and wonder, surprise and sweetness, creative risk, exploration and surprise. Some people say they write in spite of their kids but I absolutely write in gratitude to mine. 

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Virginia Wolff for gorgeous, gushing, flowing prose. Emily Dickinson and Uri Shulevitz for potent brevity. Lucille Clifton for honesty. Franciso X. Stork for respecting young readers. Cynthia Rylant for respecting VERY young readers. Mary Ann Hoberman for rhyme and Audrey Vernick for humor. I've learned so much, in person, from Ronald Wallace, Naomi Shihab Nye, Kathi Appelt, Patti Lee Gauch and all my colleagues at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, as well as in the pages of books by Cheryl Klein (The Magic Words), David Bayles and Ted Orland (Art & Fear) and Mary Oliver (A Poetry Handbook). I plan to never stop reading, listening, learning and growing.

When and where do you write?

Big work happens about 4 days a week, either at my standing desk, at my dining room table, or on the lake deck at my favorite coffee shop. But more subtle, generative, curious work happens everywhere and all the time -- while running or waiting, while cooking or facing a sleepless night, via scribbles in my journal, notes on my phone, and babbled thoughts to my husband or kids or anyone who will listen. 

What are you working on now?

I've got two middle-grade novels in revision, and a picture book manuscript just begun. And there's always a poem or two on the side. I like to have more than one project going because then, if I get stuck, I can try something else for awhile.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Yes, most mornings! OK, that's a little bit of an exaggeration but the truth is that I often open my laptop with fear. Or at least trepidation. And it's usually not till I've been at work for 30 or 60 minutes that I find my feet underneath me and start to recognize that I'm walking some sort of path. The key, for me, is just to start. To risk writing something, even if it's terrible. To try.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

I love this quote by E.B. White: "You ask, 'Who cares?' Everybody cares. You say, 'It's been written before.' Everything has been written before." To me, this removes the pressure to be somehow, miraculously, original, but it also opens up the possibility that our work might be someday received and even welcomed. It's both practical and hopeful. It helps.

What’s your advice to new writers?

I think it's important to remove some high-horsed mystique from the whole thing, to remember that regular folks write! Young folks and parents, teachers and gardeners, folks with no money and folks with plenty, morning folks and insomniacs. All around regular folks write, by using their own voices to express their deep love and worries for the world. You can be one of them. You can be one of us. There is always room for your story.

Liz Garton Scanlon is the author of many picture books, including the Caldecott Honor book All the World, One Dark Bird, Kate, Who Tamed the Wind, and Bob, Not Bob, which was co-authored by her pal Audrey Vernick. She also wrote the middle grade novel The Great Good Summer and has another forthcoming. She serves on the faculty of the Vermont Faculty of Fine Arts, is a frequent and popular presenter at conferences and festivals, and lives most of the year with her family in Austin, Texas.